E 458 


.2 


.H15 


Copy 1 



REPORTS OF THE NATIONAL WAR COMMITTEE 

OF THE CITIZENS OF NEW-YORK. 



E 458 
.2 

SPEECH ^"^5 

Copy 1 

OF 

DON. ANDREW JACKSON HAMILTON, OF TEXAS, 

Late Representative of Texas, in the 36th Congress, 

ON THE 

ConMtion of t|c ^outji unhr %M fulc, 

AND THE NECESSITY OF EARLY RELIEF 

TO THE 

UNION MEN OF WESTERN TEXAS. 

[kEPOKTED by a. F. WAKBiniTON, 8TEN0GEAPHEE, 117 NAS8AU-8TBEET.] 



In response to an invitation of the National War Commit- 
tee, the Hon. A. J. Hamilton, the eloqnent Union refugee 
from Texas, delivered an address in the large hall of Cooper 
Institute, on Friday evening, October 3d, 1862. The hall 
was densely filled. Hon. Hiram Walbridge, chairman of the 
committee of arrangements, called the meeting to order. 
He said : 

Fellow-citizens : The National AVar Committee has assigned 
to mc the duty of calling to order this vast, patriotic and in- 
telligent assemblage. Without office, without honors, with- 
out emoluments, without patronage, they find their author- 
ity only in the rectitude of their intentions, in the imminence 
of the public danger, and they rely with confidence on the re- 
gard and esteem of their countrymen. No sane man believes 
that this gigantic rebellion, which fairly shakes the earth be- 



neatli our feet, can ever be quelled, unless the Federal governr 
3nent shall furnish opportunity for the loyal patriotic Union 
men of the South to demonstrate their valor, their intrepidity,, 
and their devotion to the Constitution, the Union and the su- 
premacy of law. That Constitution and the government it 
guarantees sprung from the hearts of the American people. It 
was baptized in their blood, and it will be defended by their 
hands, so long as treason shall seek to ignore the flag, which 
has borne the glories of the American character into every 
part of the habitable globe, I nominate, gentlemen, as pre- 
siding office]-, our eminent chief magistrate, the Hon. George 
Opdyke. 

Mayor Opdyke said : My friends, we are here to listen 
to a distinguished citizen of the South, a friend of the Union 
and of the old flag, who has been compelled to flee from the 
iron despotism which the Confederate traitors have estab- 
lished. It is rarely that we are favored with an oppor- 
tunity of obtaining information from that region from a 
source at once so trustworthy, so enlightened and. so elo- 
quent. The orator of the evening is a gentleman of distin- 
guished social position and eminent public service, having 
represented his State in the Congress of the United States 
with marked ability ; and I trust the day is not far distant, 
when he will again be called upon to serve his fellow-citizens 
in the same capacity. lie will be able to portray to us, in 
truthful colors, the sad efi'ects of the rebellion in his own 
State, as well as the wrongs and outrages that he and all 
other true loyalists have been compelled to sufi'er at the hands 
of its wicked authors and abettors. He will thus furnish us 
with fresh incentives to persevere in the contest in which we 
are engaged, and intensify our efforts to crush out at once 
and forever a usurpation that has borne such bitter fruits. 
I have the honor to present to you Col. Audi'ew Jackson 
Hamilton, of Texas. 



vorp. 



ADDRESS OF MR. HAMILTON. 

fellow-citizens of the City of New- Yorlc : 

Could I, by the exercise of some supernatlftal power, pre- 
sent to those I left behind me the scene upon which I now 
gaze, and could I bring- back their answer as it would spring 
from every heart that throbs with loyal feeling to the govern- 
ment of their fathers, you would be thanked as alone is proper 
for this generous reception tendered, not to me, but to the 
cause in which, I trust, we are mutually engaged. 

I remember well, as I entered your magnificent harbor a 
few days past, for the first time in my life, I could not but be 
impressed with the evidence before me of the magnitude, the 
progress, and the greatness of our country, as reflected by 
even one single spot of its territory. But there was connected 
with it a painful throb, and it arose from the reflection that 
it was now all being imperiled ; and whatever you, fellow- 
citizens, may have supposed with regard to the progress of 
this rebellion, or its extent, so far as territory is concerned, 
or the integrity of the people of any section of the country ; 
satisfied, as you may be in your own minds, that it cannot 
go beyond the States of the South, I entertain a difierent 
opinion. I mean to be understood that if it is to succeed 
where it is already attempted, in my humble judgment, it 
will not stop there ; in short, that if the government of the 
United States, as it existed before the rebellion was attempt- 
ed, is not maintained in all its integrity, we may look forward 
to a period, perhaps not so remote that some present will not 
see it, when it will give way here as well. It is not because 
of any distrust I feel as to your loyalty of heart at this mo- 
ment. It is not because of any want of men or means to 
prosecute the war. It is still less on account of any supposed 
defect of your general intelligence, or want of general intel- 
gence among the masses of the people here. But, as I have 
had occasion to remark elsewhere, the moral efiect and power 
exercised by the name of the government of the United States, 
and the feeling which has pervaded every heart that loved 
free government, here and elsewhere, and the hopes of its 



perpetuity aucl capacity to maintain itself, based, as it is, 
upon the intelligence and loyalty of its people, will Lave been 
lost, and lost for ever. In short, if the government of the 
United States fails to crnsli this first attempt at rebellion 
against its jn^anthority, you must rest assured it is not the 
last effort that will be made ; because, he that supposes that 
a government will exist, (until the character of man is 
changed,) containing no citizen within its limits who would, 
for selfish purposes, disrupt or tear it down, imagines what is 
an impossibility. Tliere can be no such government. There 
cannot be one so free ; there cannot be one so paternal ; there 
cannot be one so exalted and so full of blessings for man, as 
that there will not be some men who, for the purpose of tem- 
porary elevation, to gratify personal ambition, would will- 
ingly, gladly tear it down. 

Encouragement, it is unnecessary to argue, has been already 
given to the rebellion by its having progressed so long, and 
because, too, of the powerful effort made to make it success- 
ful, far beyond what many intelligent men in the country 
sujDposed possible, within the compass of those States engaged 
in it. 

Origin of the Rebellion. 

But, fellow-citizens, it is our duty to inquire now what 
caused the rebellion ; and, ascertaining that fact, we w^ill un- 
derstand better how to apply a remedy to prevent a recur- 
rence of the same thing : in short, we shall take care it shall 
not originate again from the same cause. 

I have not the time, fellow-citizens, to explain how the 
masses in the Southern States were controlled by the few — ■ 
for they were the few — who engaged in the effort to disrupt 
the government of the United States. I know at the first 
blush it seems strange that a large majority should be con- 
trolled, coerced, cowed, overcome and trodden down by an 
inferior number, in reference to the highest interests and the 
fairest hopes possessed by the majority ; and yet it is true. 
They were deluded, many of them ; they were outwitted, 
many of them. They were made to believe that secession 
would necessarily compel the people of the North to hasten 



to extend to them further security for Southern institutions, 
or rather one Southern institution. That was the arp^uraent. 
It is true, fellow-citizens, that the largest portion of the peo- 
ple of the South were not personally interested in the institu- 
tion ; but they were as " loyal," (to use a favorite expression 
in the South,) they were as loyal to that institution as those 
who were personally interested in it. They were as ready to 
aid in its preservation ; they "vrere as ready to resist attacks 
from within or from M'ithout as others ; and they had been 
made to believe that there were aggressions that were annoy- 
ing, which, if they progressed from year to year, and were con- 
tinued in, would bring serious trouble, and they were anxious 
to avoid it. They loved the government of tlie United States, 
and if the proposition had been seriously made to the people of 
the South to go out of the Union, with a view of remaining 
out, I doubt if a solitary State, save and except South Caro- 
lina, would have ventured upon the experiment. 

To give you an evidence of this fact, the candidates for the 
convention in the State of Texas, in their printed addresses, 
without exception, so far as I knew them, argued the neces- 
sity of immediate action, with a view to early reconstruction. 
They went before the peoi)lc, pledging themselves that they 
were in favor of reconstruction, and desired to adopt that 
measure as a means of securing their rio-hts under the jrovern- 
ment of the United States, which they believed could not be 
secured in any other way. But, fellow-citizens, with all that, 
the majority of the people were not deceived. One-third only 
of the popular vote of the State of Texas was cast in that elec- 
tion, testing the sense of the people, or pretending to test it, 
as to their desire to sever their connection with the United 
States. Two-thirds of the body politic believed it their duty 
to stand aloof from the thing, to give it no recognition, fear- 
ing it would be an implied recognition of the regularity of 
the proceeding even to go to the polls and cast a vote. It is 
easy to see, then, how the proposition to secede was carried at 
the ballot-box. 

Another thing you cannot realize as I do. After the or- 
dinance of secession had been enacted, they really did not be- 
lieve the fact, that they were out of the Union of their fathers. 



7 
/ 



They seemed to regard it as one of those temporary iipheavings 
of popular excitement, whicli would pass away as all others 
they had witnessed had passed away ; that it was a species of 
madness that would run out and spend its force, and that 
reason would resume its sway over the minds of the people. 

Slavery antagonistic to Democracy. 

But, fellow-citizens, they failed to understand the object ; 
they failed to comprehend the spirit at the bottom of this 
movement. They did not know that the darling object in the 
hearts of these men was not merely to cut loose from the non- 
slaveholding States of the Union, not merely to cease agita- 
tion on the subject of slavery in the government under which 
the institution existed, but it was to create a new order of 
government, one not resembling that from which they had 
severed. It was, in short, fellow-citizens, to dejpress the 
masses and to elevate the few. No intimation was given by 
those engaged in it, because in some shape the name of the 
people that were sought to be depressed, that were sought to 
be deprived of their birthright, must be used. If what has 
been said since secession has been accomplished, if the decla- 
rations of their leading men, made within the last twelve 
months, had been offered from an. authoritative source by some 
man taking a leading part in the rebellion, when first inaugu- 
rated, it would have been crushed and strangled at home 
upon the very spot where it first had its origin. 

1^0 man then dared to say to the people, " this thing of de- 
mocracy will not do. This thing of republican government is 
a failure. This thing of men without property participating 
in government, being represented in the political department 
of the government, is a failure !" I say, no man uttered senti- 
ments like these until the thing had been accomplished, and 
until it had been accomplished so far that the arms of the 
people of the country were in the hands of the conspirators, 
until the powder and the lead, the means to resist, were lost to 
them ; until, in short, they were bound, and could make no 
resistance. Then, and not till then, you could hear it upon the 
streets, in the hotels, at the social board, in the parlor, every- 



\ 



where yon went, " Republican government is a failure ! We 
want a stronger government ; we intend to have a stronger 
government. We will steer clear of the danger emanating 
from the democratic masses, who are wielding, in fact, the 
power of the government of the United States." 

The argument of Mr. Spkatt, of South Carolina, is tlie pop- 
ular argument now with every man in the South who is in- 
doctrinating the public mind. They know that the masses 
will never be in love with it. But what care they for them ? 
There are some who have engaged in secession who are not 
prepared for this, but tliey must be indoctrinated. You per- 
ceive, say these men, it is a failure. Why ? Because the 
United States government has failed, and it failed on account 
of democracy. Says Mr. Spratt, " you have failed in Mont- 
gomery in incorporating the provision to re-open the Africaa 
slave-trade, and from that evidence I see you are likely to 
make a failure in establishing the government we intended 
when we severed from the United States." " I am ashamed," 
says he, " of any man South, who aspires to the name of a 
statesman, who supposes that the cause of our separation was 
in consequence of aggression by the ISTorth on the slave- 
power." And he adds, "the great ISTew-York statesman, 
Wm. H. Sewakd, never uttered a truer sentiment, than when 
he said there was an irrepressible conjiict. It is tnie ; it is 
philosophically true. We must get rid of the people of the 
Worthy hecause they are democratic in the organisation of 
their society. The working-men in the non-slaveholding 
States are the power in the government. They vote at the 
ballot-box, and they are vastly in the majority." •" All power 
in the government, when properly conducted, (he says,) must 
rest in the head of society. The head of society is composed 
of the men who direct labor. It will fail if placed in the 
heels of society, which are constituted of the laboring masses." 
" In short," says Mr. Spratt, " you perceive from the premi- 
ses that slavery and democracy cannot live together^ " We 
have not accomplished the object of separation," he adds. 
" You are already backing down from it ; you are afraid, per- 
haps, that the people will not bear it. If you shrink from it 
T^Qyj^ it will involve the necessity of another revolution, and 



we will have it, altliougli it sliould be bloodier than tliis, in 
which we shall accomplish the great, the leading, the only ob- 
ject we had in this — getting rid of the last and least remains 
of democracy in our own midst.'''' And then, in order that 
he might not be misunderstood bj any one, added, " We 
must have a slave aristocracy.'''' 

This was a letter addressed to the Hon, Mr. Perkins, of 
Louisiana, who was sitting in the convention in Alabama. 
It was published in the Charlest07i Mercury, reproduced 
among the leading journals of the South, and commented 
upon favorably ; and to this good hour no man has lifted up 
his voice against it throughout all rebeldom, that I have 
heard. ]S"o man in his paper, or in a public address, has 
done so. Indeed, now there are no other sentiments pub- 
lished than those closely followiug the leading of Mr. Spratt. 

" We must have a stronger government." The only reply 
that I ever made to these arguments, as long as I was permit- 
ted to hear them, was simply this : " Gentlemen, by the time 
you have got through with Uncle Sam, you will think, per- 
haps, it is strong enough for common use." 

How THE EeBELLION IS TO BE CkUSHED. 

I desire to be brief Allow me to pass rapidly on, for I 
find I will consume too much of your valuable time to-night. 
[Cries of " Ko, no— go on."] Having ascertained the cause 
of the rebellion, the question arises, and the only one with 
which we ought to deal : How is that rebellion to be crushed ? 
and how are we to see to it that the cause of that rebellion 
shall never bring forth the same bitter fruit ? 

In giving you my humble views, let me preface them by 
saying, that two years past I was what I suppose would have 
been called a " loyal" man to the institution of slavery, al- 
though greatly suspected by them. I dreaded to see, what I 
believed inevitable at some distant period, the conflict be- 
tween slavery and democracy. I never doubted but it would 
come, but I was selfish enough, I will admit, to hope it 
would not be in my day, or during the period of my child- 
ren's lives. I did not perceive how I, with my humble 



powers, could ercadicatc the evil, if I had thought proper to 
engage in the work. I rested in the comfortable retlcction 
that it having been permitted by Providence to grow up, 
doubtless for some wise, but, to us, inscrutable purpose, that 
same Providence would look to it that it would be disposed 
of also in accordance with the w411 of the Great Kuler of the 
universe. 

I never would have quarreled with the men who owned 
that property. Indeed, I would have assisted in protecting 
them in their legal rights to retain it, so long as it was an in- 
stitution under the laws and constitution of the respective 
States where it existed. But the very moment it sought to 
tear away from me the only protection I have ever had, or 
hope to leave my posterity — the flag of my fathers— for the 
purpose of building another government upon slavery, as its 
chief corner-stone — that moment I changed my relations to 
the institution of slavery ; and I warned them in advance, 
that they would make me, what I had felt was an unmerited 
reproach, when it had been hurled at me in times past — an 
abolition sympathizer. I told them they would make me, 
not merely a symjpathizev^ but they would make me an active^ 
practical abolitionist. 

I told them more ; I said to them, " the moment you enter 
" upon this experiment you have already drawn a line ; you 
"have dug a gulf — an impassable one, between yourselves 
" and the non-slave owners of the South. You do not realize it 
" now, but I know that you do not make the new government 
" a liberal one. You can never do it, for the simple reason, that 
" the men who are deluded by you to-day will not have expe- 
" rienced the blessings of this new government for two years, 
" until they will want no man to reason with them, for the 
" purpose of provhig that the old was the better government. 
" Their experience will have taught it to them. They will find 
" themselves disrobed of their birthright. You will limit the 
"right of sufirage. You will require property qualification. 
" You know that I know you intend to do it. "When you have 
" done that, will you allow these men you have disfranchised 
" to have arms, a right guaranteed to them under the constitu- 
" tiou of the United States ? You dare not do it. The strong 



10 

*' arms and stout hearts of tliis people would crush you in one 
" single day, the moment tlie scales drop from their eyes, and 
" they see they are no longer free men, if you do not keep 
" them in your grasp. That being the truth, it is impossible 
" for you to make this a liberal government. Tou cannot do 
" it. Tou will then have challenged every lover of freedom 
" throughout the world, to resist a government built upon 
" slavery, for the purpose of elevating the slave-owners, at the 
" expense of the aggregated millions. Can you sustain slavery 
" under such circumstances ? Tou have already destroyed it, 
"in my judgment ; and if you have not destroyed it by the 
" moral force brought against it, I would actively'' war with 
" you, while my life lasts, to reclaim the freedom of my child- 
" ren at the expense of your negroes, and slavery based upon 
"them." 

Inutility of Conciliation. 

I fear there are those all over the country who still believe 
that by some peace measure, by some conciliatory step on 
the part of the government, these disloyal States can be re- 
claimed. No greater fallacy can creep into the mind of man. 
Why, fellow-citizens, the loyal masses of the South need no 
conciliation. Tliey demand none ; but they are this night 
sending up their prayei-s to the Great Kuler of the universe 
for aid and assistance to come back to the Union uncondi- 
tionally. They have not the new government in their hands, 
however. They have no power to give direction to its policy. 
"Who, then, are you to conciliate in order to cause the rebel- 
lion to cease ? Jefferson Davis. Ah ! he will ask you, " will 
you allow me to be made President of the United States, 
ever?" If not, you have not given the first reason on earth 
why he can be conciliated. Are you willing, in short, to 
place him back in the same social and political status that he 
occupied before he inaugurated this rebellion ? If you are, 
I am not. I do want to see the old government, when it shall 
have re-asserted its authority and power, make a wise and just 
discrimination between the guilty and the deluded. I do want 
the real responsible traitors punished, but I would have the 



11 

down-trodden, the suffering, the ignorant, (if you will,) who 
have been made instruments in the hands of these vile men, 
brought back. Let them come, — although they may have 
aided in secession,— come back, like the prodigal son, and 
forgive them. 

If we cannot conciliate these men, then, fellow-citizens, 
what can we do ? Need I ask such an auditory as this ? Is 
it possible— shall history record it— that twenty-seven mil- 
lions of free men and women, and children, have not the 
moral and physical power to strangle treason in the hands of 
fifteen hundred thousand ? Is Eepublicanism to fail, because 
twenty-seven millions are not sufficiently conscious of their 
duty to themselves, to the government of their fiithers, to 
humanity the wide world over, to realize.that this rebellion can 
alone be crashed by physical force ? I have not a doubt but 
that peace propositions will come from the Confederate gov- 
ernment ; but they will not come in the shape of an uncondi- 
tional proposition, to cease hostilities, and resume their old 
position in the government of the United States, leaving all 
their citizens with the same rights that they had under the 
old Constitution. They will not come in that shape. We 
have seen, already, from particular presses, what would be 
the conditions upon which hostilities would be abandoned ; 
but I do not believe we have seen in the papers what would 
emanate from the cabinet (if I may be allowed to use the ex- 
pression) at Kichmond. It must be something more than 
that. They never will yield the idea of building up a gov- 
ernment in which their power will be perpetuated. And why ? 
Because they know if the government of the United States 
shall, in its mercy, pardon their offences, and restore them to 
their rights under the Constitution, that their own fellow- 
eitizens, who have been their victims, would spurn them 
away, and they would be as effectually cut off from all future 
power as if they were convicted for high treason. They never 
will do it ; and the very desperation with which they now 
struggle ought to prove to you, and to the world, that they 
will never stop while they can get men to bleed. They will 
never cease to fight as long as there is a hope of success, for 
it is the only hope of salvation to them. 



12 

They have not at heart, as you have, — they do not feel for the 
sufferings of their wives and children that are made widows 
and orphans by this unholy war. It has never entered the 
mind of one man engaged in this rebellion, who understood 
its object, to shed a single tear for all the suffering that has 
been brought upon the country. They did know it would 
involve bloodshed ; they did know it would involve misery 
and woe ; but the object was dearer to their hearts than any 
other in life ; they had solemnly determined to make the 
venture ; and having made it, they are cut off from all sym- 
pathy with men that love free government the wide world 
over; and they must, if they occupy a position that gives 
them respectability in the future, occupy it in a government 
not such as this. 

Now, fellow-citizens, if you think such men can be con- 
ciliated or brought back to a love of the government they 
have so much wronged ; if you believe they can ever live in 
good neighborhood with you whom they have so much 
abused by word and deed, you are more deluded than even 
the poor miserable people of the South, who were made to 
believe that the new government would be a new Jerusalem. 
Ko ! TUq war must he prosecuted. The rebellion must ie 
put down. It must be put down by bayonets, by powder 
and ball, by brave hearts and strong arms. 



Secession once Acknowledged will Spread. 

It is not, fellow-citizens, because I have suffered ; it is not 
because thousands upon thousands of my fellow-citizens are 
suffering — not for that alone that I beg you to engage ear- 
nestly in this work. It is true, had I not suffered, had I not 
witnessed suffering, I might not, and would not, in all human 
probability, have been so earnest in my feelings. We are 
all sufficiently selfish, and I am no exception. It is on your 
own account, as well as mine and those similarly situated, 
that I ask you to make an earnest effort to put down this re- 
bellion at an early day. 

If secession is an accomplished fact, and the government 



13 

that lias resulted from it an established government among the 
nations of the earth, do you believe that secession will stop 
there? Are there not men even in the Empire State, in your 
goodly city, who would listen to the whisperings of treason 
at some iuture day, proposing to withdraw New- York from 
the remaining States of the Union ? There may be no such 
man in all New- York ; but I would dislike exceedingly to 
think that my hopes for the future depended on the fact of 
their being no such man. And in saying this, I do not ques- 
tion the loyalty of the great heart of New-York. Never. 
I mean that man, even here in New- York, has not attained 
to human perfectability. There are men, doubtless, here, 
who would be willing to be the great particular magnet of 
the age in New-York, at the expense of the government at 
"Washington. It is certain to my mind. It is one of those 
propositions which, it seems to me, require no argument to 
enforce them upon the minds of others, that, when once it is 
established that it is a possible and practicable thing to tear 
States, bound together by the bonds of Union, asunder, there 
will be men tugging at it continuously, day by day, and 
year by year ; and I ask you if you will have the same con- 
fidence that their efforts can be successfully resisted? No, 
fellow-citizens ; and you may be brought even to doubt 
whether or not, in order to escape anarchy at last, you, too, 
had not better have a "stronger government." 

There is safety, there is hope for us, for our children and 
for fallen humanity throughout the world, in the preservation 
of the government of our fathers ; there is confidence in 
the flag that floats over the soil of New-York to-day. But 
wiien the one shall have been destroyed, and the other be trail- 
ing in the dust, who again will have confidence in republican 
government? Can we make a better government than our 
fathers have made, or than we have inherited ? "Will there 
ever another government exist that can, in half a century, 
accomplish more than this has accomplished ? "Will the sun 
ever shine upon another government, with thirty millions of 
people, all so prosperous and happy? Never. Then your 
hopes are bound up in this government, with mine. If the 
inteirritv of the constitution and the laws of this government 



14 

are not to be exercised and felt upon the territory of my 
State, my hopes are buried. If you see them fail there, you 
know it is not an impossible thing for them to fail here. 
There being safety, then, in the one course, and, at the very 
least, doubt, uncertainty and gloom in the other, who will 
hesitate in making his choice ? 

Sufferings of Union Men in Texas. 

You have not, fellow-citizens, felt as others have been com- 
pelled to feel, the effects of this revolution. It has not been 
yours to realize that you were already less than free men. 
The right of free speech, thank God ! I realize is here to- 
night. The dignity of manhood is here. It is felt and exer- 
cised under the blessings of a government that elevates the 
masses instead of depressing them. I, fellow-citizens, have 
stood upon my own hearth and felt that I was a degraded 
man — for no wrong or crime that I had done — but I was de- 
graded because I was a son of the South, and the people that 
I had lived with so long and loved so much, had forfeited 
their birthright, and had torn mine away from me without 
the power to resist, and I had not the courage to make my- 
self a martyr. I have been compelled, like hundreds of 
others, (and I beg your pardon for mentioning myself,) to 
leave my home; and home is dear. Need I address myself 
to fathers, to mothers, to say how dear it is ? I was obliged 
to leave home, and that under circumstances that would have 
been painful even if peace pervaded the land. The Angel 
of Death had left the shadow of his wing upon my threshold. 
The brightest gem in my household jewels had dropped away. 
But why should I be permitted to weep, with ray wife and 
babes, over the tomb of my dear little daughter ? I, an old 
wretch, so they styled me, who dared to tell the people that 
he loved the government of his fathers ; that his hopes for 
himself and his children centred in the Constitution and flag 
of his government ; who had dared, in the halls of the United 
States Congress, to act upon the old and discarded theory, 
that the solemn oath he took to support the Constitution, and 
to legislate to the best of his humble skill and ability for the 



LiBRftRY OF CONGRESS 

jiir 

j5 012 028 068 5 

good of the whole people of the United States, should be ob- 
served, and who, when he returned, pointed at others who 
had taken a similar oath, and who had prostituted tlie power 
placed in their hands by high and dignified oflSce, to enable 
them to violate successfully that oath ! I had done too 
much to be permitted to live peaceably at home. I had rob- 
bed no man in the land. There were those there whom, in 
trying times, I had fed, and they were among the first to 
cry " Crucify him ! hang him, the villainous traitor!" 

In Mexico, at this moment, there are, perhaps, five hun- 
dred men who have left as I have left. They are scattered 
from here to Mexico. They are in the mountain fastnesses, 
hiding like wolves, and being hunted down like wolves. 
Are they to have help, or are they to be left helpless ? They 
love their government. Oh ! give them a chance, and I pledge 
myself here to-night they will bleed for it — they will die for 
it— they will help to redeem it ; and there are men enough 
there to-day to redeem it, if they were organized, and with 
arms in their hands. 

YiGOKOUs Pkosecution of the War. 

Then, fellow-citizens, determine that this war is to be vig- 
orously prosecuted, until there is not a traitor from Maine to 
Mexico ; until we compel the men who will not obey and 
love our virtuous and glorious government, to go where they 
properly belong. Let them seek some other land, where 
republican government is yet a dream or a hope ; let them 
go where despotism is triumphant— where they can utter their 
foul denunciations of all that is good, of all that is ennobling 
in the human character, and find sympathy and aflBliation 
and afliuity with those who have been all the days of their 
lives engaged in treading down the liberties and the interests 
of the human race. Let no man be permitted to live in the 
government who will dare again to strut his little hour upon 
the stage, and preach treason to his fellow-men. 

Restore the government, its Constitution and its laws, to 
all our fellow-citizens— with all nay heart. Restore the Union 
as it existed in the disloyal sections for the year just preced- 
ing the rebellion — God forbid I 



L 



16 

Am I to be remitted back to the soil of Texas, to be 
hunted \)j assassins the little remnant of my life ? Am I to 
go there to teach my little son that the chief blessing of his 
great future is to run from street to street, and from man to 
man, and insist that he is as sound a man upon this subject 
of slavery as lives? Am I to see my neighbors and friends 
hung by the neck, or shot down like beasts, because they 
have doubted that the chief businef3s of the Great Ruler of 
the universe is not in directing and controlling, and ma- 
turing and jjerpetuating the institution of slavery ! No, 
fellow-citizens ; if I cannot go there, and strike hands with 
my friends at home ; if I cannot be again united with my 
family, except upon the terms that I am to live in such 
society as it has existed there — hard as it is to utter — I can 
find it in my heart to say, let me never see them. But if 
you mean by the restoration of the Union as it was, a restora- 
tion of that Union such as our fathers intended it to be, then, 
with all my heart, let us have it. The issue is simple ; it is 
plain. The wayfaring man must read it as he runs, though 
he be a fool — slavery^ on the one hand^ and liberty on tht 
other. And yet, fellow- citizens, for these brief desultory 
words, honestly spoken, I am yet to be further tried. Fiiends, 
doubtless, who have stood up for me hitherto, will say they 
are not prepared for this yet. But I fear not for them ; they 
will arrive in due time where I stand ; and I will add, even 
at the expense of being considered arrogant, if you please, 
that what I have said to-night, all uninteresting as it may be 
to you, will strike a chord deep in the hearts of my people. 
I know how the people feel, their modes of thought, and to 
what conclusions their minds have already been brought. 
They will say the choice is, "your negroes — my children. 
I love my children best. I do not intend to part with the 
hopes that I have predicated upon my little son. He ought 
to have had — he did have until you took it away from him — 
the right to aspire to the highest honors in his country's gift. 
I know you intend to rob him of it. I will not suffer it. I 
will fight that my son may be free, even at the expense of 
freeing your negroes." 

Let me, then, fellow-citizens, indulge the hope, that if it 



17 

shall be mj fortune again to visit home and friends, I can 
say, and ^y truthfully, "I am a freeman. I am not merely 
a theoretical freeman. I have the Constitution of the United 
States guaranteeing to me my freedom ; but I have what is 
dearer still : I have countrymen, I have society, I have breth- 
ren, fellow-citizens, all over the State, who intend, without 
an exception, that I shall practice the right of a freeman 
throughout my life. They intend that I shall indulge the 
noblest right that can be given to man — the right of thought, 
and of impressing that thought, humble though it be, upon 
the minds of others. If I can go home with that kind of 
freedom, I want it; less than that, I shall never be satisfied 
with. 

Let me say I now realize that I am free. There are no 
shackles on my mind, imposed by a class of society even 
more powerful than the government itself, to weigh me down 
beyond the power of the government to save me. Hun- 
dreds of men have perished, because they dared to think, 
because they loved freedom, and indulged, occasionally, 
in speculations as to how freedom was best to be preserved. 
They have been hung like felons. I wish that to cease. I 
want the government of the United States to treat every man 
in the land as its enemy, as a convicted felon, who will at- 
tempt to impose further restrictions upon the right of a free 
people to think and to talk. 

When I see that, then I can lift my hands, and say : 
"Blessed, indeed, is this government! I realize how fully, 
how entirely, it has made me what man should be in respect 
of his rights in the presence of his fellow men." Then, in- 
deed, I can gaze with fond eyes upon that flag, as I did when, 
fleeing from persecution, and perhaps death, 1 first saw it 
float upon the broad Atlantic. I can accept it as the emblem 
of freedom really, unqualifiedly ; having gained new lustre 
by the very struggle in which its citizens are engaged to-day. 
I will indulge the hope, fellow-citizens, that victory upon 
the field will not only perch upon every standard of our 
noble armies, but that a moral halo will surround the flag 
which is borne victorious, from the consciousness of those 
who fight that they are struggling to sustain liberty, and to 



18 

crush the last remains of treason. Then, indeed, our latest 
thought upon government and society shall be : '41 am yet 
the citizen of a free government; I still occupy the position 
of a recipient of the largest rational human liberty ; I am yet 
jn freedom's soil, with freedom's banner floating o'er me." 

Mr. Hamilton concluded amid hearty and prolonged ap- 
plause. 

Eesolution of Thanks. 

The Hon. Hiram Walbridge offered the following resolu- 
tion : 

Resolved, That the earnest and cordial thanks of the loyal 
citizens of Kew-York are hereby tendered to Colonel Hamil- 
ton, for his clear, concise and thorough exposition of the 
infamy of the present wicked rebellion, and that it is the duty 
of the Federal government, at the earliest practicable mo- 
ment, to furnish such aid to the loyal Union men of the 
South as will enable them to again enjoy all the blessings of 
representative constitutional government. 

The Rev. Dr. Hitchcock, in seconding the resolution, 
said : 

Mr. Mayor, I second this resolution with all my heart, and 
you will allow me, fellow-citizens, to say, that never in all 
my life have I been more happy not to have been a " condi- 
tional" Union man than to-night. We have listened to a 
Southern slaveholder, who is not a rebel, and that Southern 
slaveholder turns out to be an abolitionist. 

The one indispensable thing for this government to do, as 
intimated in the resolution offered for your acceptance, is to 
march with even front — a front all grim with cannon, and 
all gleaming with steel — over the whole Soutliern territory, 
acre by acre; and these loyal millions, which must be 
launched on this disloyal soil, will see what Providence, by 
better discipline, has been slowly teaching us, and what the 



19 

orator of the evening has made so plain, that this Satanic 
Power which we must hm-l into the dust, sits enthroned on a sa- 
cred stone, which is as black as night ; and while our gleaming 
bayonets move straiglit on, let us invoke the hammer of the 
God Thok to smite into powder that black pedestal upon 
which our satanic enemy sits enthroned. 

The resolution was unanimously adopted, and the meeting 
adjourned. 



Printed by order of the National War Committee of the 
Citizens of New- York. 

John Austin Stevens, Jr., 

Seareiary. 

New-TorJc, October 4, 1862. 



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